The Concept of Servant and Islamic Leadership:

A Comparative Analysis

Mahazan Abdul Mutalib

Wan Mohd. Fazrul Azdi Wan Razali
Univevsiti Sains Is lam Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore and examine the similarities and dijferences
between the concepts of Servant Leadership (S-L) and Islamic Leadership (I-L) through
identljying the characteristics of both concepts as represented in the literature. Data,for
analysis were collected from three major secondary sources: the literature of Islamic
Leadership (I-Lj, Servant Leadership (S-L), and General Leadership (G-L). The result
of an approach based on hermeneutics and content analysis revealed that the concept of
Servant Leadership (S-L) accords with Islamic Leadership (I-L) particularly in the aspect
of how both of the concepts focus on the aspect ethical leadership. Moreover; based on the
nineteen clusters of Islamic Leadership (I-L) designed to examine the ten characteristics of
Servant Leadership (S-L) in the open and axial codingprocess, this researchfound that the
ten characteristics of S-L accord with the nineteen clusters, except inJive clusters: justice
and equity; profit-orientation; moderation and balance; spiritual, religious, faith in God
andpiety; and coerciveness under certain circumstances with limitations. The diferences
have suggested that in general the literature of Servant Leadership (S-L) should be enriched
with more ideas pertaining to other aspects of leadership,for example Islamic Leadership
(I-L) besides those to do with organisational leadership, while the literature of Islamic
Leadership (I-L) should be enriched with more information pertaining to contemporary
leadership processes and contexts.

Keywords: Islamic leadership, servant leadership, hermeneutics, content analysis

Introduction

This article discusses three themes that arose based on the content analysis procedures
conducted on the characteristics of Servant leadership or S-L (Dittmar, 2006; DeGraaf,